Saturday, May 28, 2011

I like to use my full name on the things that I write. As far as I can tell, nobody else in the world shares this name so it is my way of saying "I was here".

I want to disclaim, however, one case that I know of in which a person wrote under my name with the intent to deceive others into believing that it was me. This person typically wrote on websites and blogs associated with Unitarian Universalism (UU). He had a grudge against UU and chose me as he knew that I had been a member of that organization.

To a lesser degree, I also want to disclaim things that I wrote where editors then changed the wording to the extent that it changed the meaning. This includes letters to the editor of newspapers and the letter to the readers on the back cover of my book. I have stopped writing letters to the editor for this reason. In the age of the Web, I think self-publishing is the way to go.

To an even lesser degree, I disclaim computer code that I have written where someone else then subsequently modified it without adding their own name to it. Their modifications, both good and bad, are then inappropriately attributed to me. In this situation, I would prefer that they add their own name or "unattributed" even if their changes are minor.